Mono U Martyr Reboot

[FTW]

This is an old Legacy deck that was competitive a decade ago in a specific meta. Now with many new upgrades!!

The plan is to play a blue tempo aggro-control game with 1-mana disruptive blue creatures and free countermagic. Sky Hussar is the draw engine, keeping the stream of creatures and counters. Mana is spent dumping out bodies fast, and everything else is "free".

Flare of Denial is what makes this deck worth looking at again, since this shell has the best creature support for Flare in the format. There are exciting new blue 1-drops like Mockingbird, Tamiyo, and Rishadan Dockhand that notably don't get wrecked by Bowmasters. Curious Obsession is an efficient way to convert evasive 1-drops into free cards, especially when you're full of Dazes to stop early removal. Other draw engines are possible, but Obsession plays into the proactive tempo this archetype needs to make the Daze strategy good.

New Build


//Blue Weenies: 26
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Rishadan Dockhand
4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
4 Mockingbird
4 Psychic Frog
2 Brazen Borrower

//Draw Engine: 7
4 Curious Obsession
3 Sky Hussar

//Free Counters: 12
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Flare of Denial

//Mana: 15
2 Sink into Stupor
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Underground Sea
4 Snow-Covered Island

//Sideboard: 15
3 Force of Negation
3 Harbinger of the Seas
3 Witness Protection
2 Consign to Memory
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Mistcaller


This version has redundant card engines to fuel the velocity: Curious Obsession, Sky Hussar, Psychic Frog, Tamiyo. Most cards cost 0-1 mana, so extra cards can be deployed quickly while board presence grows. Tempo is the name of the game. Harbinger of the Seas is the hammer to break decks that will try to go bigger. The rest of the SB seeks to cover common SB effects but as cheap blue cards or flyers, so the main engine doesn't get diluted after boarding.

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Below is the original deck from years ago. It was more Daze.dec with Cursecatcher and Martyr of Frost. Cursecatcher is a lot worse these days, especially in a Bowmaster meta. The non-flying versions aren't worth playing. The original deck leaned on Ninja of the Deep Hours as a draw engine. It could be replaced by new Ninjas, but that's still suboptimal in the current meta (or could be UB Ninjas).

Original Deck

//Blue Weenies: 20
4 Cursecatcher
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Martyr of Frost
4 Nivmagus Elemental
3 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Skaab Ruinator

//Draw Engines: 7
3 Ninja of the Deep Hours
4 Sky Hussar

//Counters: 16
4 Force of Will
4 Flusterstorm
4 Daze
4 Disrupting Shoal

//Other Spells: 4
2 Aether Vial
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Snapback

//Lands: 13
2 Wasteland
11 Island

//Sideboard: 15
3 Submerge
2 Back to Basics
2 Divert
2 Skaab Ruinator
1 Spellstutter Sprite
2 Pithing Needle
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Ivory Tower


Many Daze creatures and cheap counters. The original deck did not try to finish the game with only 1/1s. It tried to build up to a big midgame counter war where extra Flusterstorm storm copies (and Daze) can be eaten by Nivmagus Elemental to turn it into a real threat. Skaab Ruinator also made a fast clock. This was in an era before Murktide & Frog, when monoblue lacked finishers. Shoal was necessary as another free counter before Force of Negation existed.


Thraben U recently tried to reboot the deck with Nadu: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaMM9Klfw_0

Nadu Martyr

//Blue Weenies: 19
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Judge's Familiar
4 Martyr of Frost
2 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
2 Spellstutter Sprite
1 Thassa's Oracle
2 Brazen Borrower

//Draw Engines: 7
4 Nadu, Winged Wisdom
3 Sky Hussar

//Counters: 10
4 Force of Will
2 Flare of Denial
2 Force of Negation
2 Flusterstorm

//Artifacts: 7
4 Shuko
2 Aether Vial
1 Lavaspur Boots

//Lands: 17
4 Urza's Saga
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
3 Island

//Sideboard: 15
2 Force of Negation
1 Flusterstorm
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Dismember
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Shadowspear
1 Tormod's Crypt


This deck went 1-4 in the league. It couldn't assemble the Nadu combo with no card selection. It couldn't make use of the Daze effects (because it was playing draw-go too much and not able to be more proactive). The 2-mana counters were too slow to matter (Spellstutter, Martyr). Again, the deck needs to be more proactive with mana instead of reactive. Then drawing duds like Shuko, Vial, and extra lands made it harder to get a critical mass of blue creatures. The original deck needed a critical number of blue creatures out to generate velocity, and it needed finishers.

I think the plan is salvageable by cutting this slower stuff to prioritize the original game plan: tempo. Mana should be spent casting blue creatures, while 0-mana effects can counter spells & draw cards. The Nivmagus combo and Skaab Ruinator are underpowered now, and Murktide can't be supported by so few spells, but Frog and Mockingbird can be great finishers.

[FTW]

So post-Grief ban, as the meta toys with ways to play Froggy Tempo, this meme deck actually looks pretty good at out-tempoing and out-Frogging. Not Tier 1, but maybe good enough to post a decent winrate for memes.

At the core, this is a blue deck trying to play under everyone else.

Mockingbird reads "1U: Permanently flying Psychic Frog", so this is 8Frog vs a Frog meta. Your flying Frog can always block theirs, while they have to exile cards to block yours. Seems good.

You get to be the deck going even dumber on tempo + card draw with:
8Frog
4 Tamiyo
11 Force
12 Daze
Port on Legs
3 Magus of the Moon to hate on greedy mana (Tomb decks, 3-color Frog value, Lands)


Another new card I think is underrated tech: Blue-to-Plowshares (Witness Protection). These cards were traditionally bad at 2-3 mana (Turn to Frog) or 1 mana to make a 3/3 (Pongify), but I think they finally crept it to playable level. 1 mana removal is good! It nerfs Psychic Frog, Murktide, big Eldrazi, Dreadnought, Marit Lage, etc. Dismember fails at a lot of those targets.

The one thing really missing is another fast clock.